One of Santos’s hands was in her hair, twisting to hold her still, to keep her mouth just where he wanted it, while the other roamed over her body. His tongue tangled with hers, tasting the innermost warmth of her mouth, mirroring the more intimate dance towards which they were heading. And they were heading that way. There was no doubt of that at all in Alexa’s mind. This heat, this hunger, this yearning intensity could not lead to anywhere else. It was as if someone had started the countdown to a nuclear explosion and there was no way of stopping it that wouldn’t result in an even more dramatic meltdown than the one they had triggered between them.
‘I want you,’ Santos muttered against her mouth, his accent so raw and thick that the words were almost incomprehensible.
But there was no need of words with the heated evidence of his arousal pressed against her stomach, with his hands growing harder, more demanding with every pass they made over her body. The heat of his fingers over her breast had her nipple peaking in urgent response, pushing wantonly into his palm so that the brush of his fingers was a stinging pleasure, sending sensation rushing from this most sensitive point to flood the rest of her body with need. Alexa moaned aloud at the feel of it, hearing Santos laugh deep in his throat as he caught her response against his lips, kissing it back into her mouth, his taste blending with her own until she didn’t know where she ended or he began.
And that was how she wanted it in every cell in her body. The primal heat that his kisses had started within her licked along every nerve, pooling low down between her legs where a heavy, honeyed pulse of desire beat a primitive tattoo so that when he half walked, half carried her backwards to the larger settee she went with him willingly, too lost in sensation, too mindless with need to think of anything beyond the moment. And when the backs of her legs hit the side of the bed as they had done earlier she tumbled onto the downy quilt, carried further and faster with Santos’s heavy weight coming down on top of her.
His hands were under her dress now, pushing the pink satin down her arms to expose her heated skin, fingertips trailing burning patterns over her body so that she writhed in unrestrained delight at the sensations his touch created.
‘Want you too,’ she muttered urgently, her voice not sounding like her own, it was so rough and raw with need. ‘Kiss me—touch me …’
Take me, she longed to say but even now some last remaining hint of restraint kept a check on her tongue. There was no going back, she knew that deep in her soul. It would tear her apart if he stopped now, when her body was aching for him, straining towards him, almost screaming the need to know his full possession, the total union of their bodies, skin on skin, flesh against flesh, hunger matching hunger.
But she couldn’t quite bring herself to voice that need. Didn’t dare to put her yearning into words, to strip away the carefully protective mask she had felt the urge to wear in front of this man. Stripping her clothes off was one thing. That was what she wanted more than all the world—to be physically naked with him. But emotional nakedness was quite another matter. That was something she didn’t dare reveal to him. It would be like putting her soul under a microscope and letting him dissect it with a cold, brutal steel knife.
Needy fingers fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, tugging them free with impatient movements. Exposing his skin brought a sudden rush of the warm, slightly musky scent of his skin and she inhaled it like some rich perfume, feeling the impact of it hit her as if it was a raw aphrodisiac.
‘Santos …’
His tormenting hands had moved further inwards, stroking over the creamy lace of her bra, the delicate covering lasting only a second or two under his knowing fingers. Swiftly and expertly he freed the clasp at the back, easing the soft material from her swollen breasts and replacing it with the heat of his palms, cupping and lifting her in a way that no underwear could ever do. And all trace of embarrassment, all trace of thought, fled from her mind completely as he stroked caressing thumbs over each taut nipple, making her gasp aloud at the shock of stinging arousal.
She caught the faint sound of his laughter once more as he kissed her again, taking that gasp into his own mouth and swallowing it down without taking his lips from hers. And all the time his hands worked magic on her breasts, stroking, teasing, caressing until she was writhing under his touch, almost out of her mind with pleasure.
‘I knew this was how it would be,’ Santos muttered against her skin as that hot, demanding mouth started to move downwards, over her chin, along the sensitive line of her throat, leaving a trail of burning kisses everywhere it touched. ‘Knew how it had to be.’
She felt his tongue touch her too, slick and warm, lingering over the spot where her pulse beat frantically under the delicate skin at the base of her neck. Then, shocking her into lying totally still, holding her breath in stunned excitement, he moved his caresses to the soft slopes of her breast, kisses replacing his fingers, moving slowly, sinfully, seductively upwards, until at last his lips closed over the taut bud of her nipple, drawing it into the heat of his mouth, teeth grazing it so very gently.
‘Santos!’
Her use of his name was a raw, primitive sound that shocked her to hear it. She hadn’t known that she was capable of being so out of control, so far from civilised, and her fingers clutched in his hair, holding him still against her. This time his laughter was a warm feathering across her sensitive nipple, making her shiver and wriggle in ecstatic response.
But she couldn’t control his hands, and they were far from still, roaming even lower, stroking over the soft planes of her stomach, blunt fingertips circling her navel then dipping into the small, soft valley. She had barely caught her breath before they moved again, tracing slow, erotic patterns over her skin as they slid lower, easing the satin skirts upwards, slipping under the near-transparent panties, tangling in the dark hair that shielded the most intimate spot of her body. The spot that throbbed and burned in anticipation of the pleasure of his touch. Arching herself into those caressing fingers, Alexa sighed her contentment and encouragement, urging him onward, lower …
‘Oh, yes—Santos … please …’
Eyes closed, she reached for him blindly, arms locking around his strong neck, drawing him down to her again so that his lips captured hers once more. The feel of his breath against her cheek was as hot, as raw and uneven as her own, telling her without the need for words that he was as far beyond control as she was.
‘How have you done this to me?’ he muttered against her mouth. ‘How has it come to this so fast?’
The same questions were whirling inside her head but she didn’t want to stop and consider them, didn’t want to let them take root in any way that might make her pause and think, reconsider how she had come to be here. She simply wanted to feel, to experience this wild rush of passion. To know the full force of Santos’s possession.
With hands that shook with need, she tugged at Santos’s clothing, wrenching the buttons of the silk waistcoat from their fastenings, pushing it aside.
His shirt followed, buttons dispensed with with more haste than finesse, the fine garment tossed aside as her hungry fingers closed over the warmth of his skin, the power of tight, clenched muscle, drawing him even closer to her.
That tormenting touch left her briefly as Santos dealt with the rest of his clothing, coming back to her before she had really realised that he had gone, the heat of his body coming over her like an enfolding wave, swamping her thought processes. She coiled around him so tightly that she could almost not tell where she ended and he began. But there was still that one, vital part of her that was hungry, empty. Longing for, needing his possession. Unable to put her need into words, she could only press herself against him, mutely imploring him to ease the agony of waiting, to take her, to take them both to the wild oblivion she could sense was just out of sight, just out of reach.
And Santos needed no extra urging. With his mouth still tight against hers, he slid one hard-muscled leg between both of hers, edging them apart to
open her up to him. His arms slid underneath her pliant body, raising her slightly so that her hips cradled him, her legs curling around his.
She had barely time to snatch a breath, to gather herself, before he had thrust inwards, deep and hard, taking her high into delight, almost splintering her into ecstasy in the very first moment of their coming together.
‘Santos!’ His name was a cry of wonder, of shocked disbelief, as she clung to him, her heart thudding, her eyes wide, her breath shuddering in her lungs.
‘Easy, belleza,’ Santos soothed, his voice sounding as if it was fraying at the edges, coming unravelled just as she was.
And just that sound deprived her of any hope of taking anything ‘easy’. Just the thought that she had had such an effect on this darkly devastating man had her moving sharply, catching his gasp of reaction in her mouth as she took him with her.
‘Alexa …’
Her name was the last thing he managed as she took control from him, using the sensual power of his body, the mind-blowing impact of his kisses to take her hard and fast, driving her unerringly towards oblivion with almost terrifying concentration.
Their bodies clashed and shuddered, gasping breaths tangling together, heartbeats racing, thundering, pounding as one. Together they came to the edge and together they stayed there for one agonising moment before a single final thrust took them over, spinning them out into the whirling haze of ecstasy that seemed to turn Alexa’s soul inside out and back again and again until she finally came back down to earth with a stunned and shaken sigh.
Exhausted, replete, she just wanted to lie there, to feel Santos’s arms come round her again. Perhaps his kiss against her face. So the change when it came was so sudden, so shocking, so unbelievable, that it stunned her rigid, keeping her lying there with her eyes closed as Santos moved away from her. Not just to the side of the bed, not to hold her or cuddle close in any way, but up and away from her, the sound of the thud of his feet on the floor telling their own story. The cold shiver of air over her skin chilled her heated flesh, stopped her racing pulse and left her feeling lost and bereft, totally alone.
And then his stillness was so complete, so lengthy, that after a few moments his silence got through to her where she hid behind the security of her closed eyelids.
‘Santos?’
It was a whisper that got as far as her lips but then she didn’t dare to let it go. She was afraid to let him hear in her voice how shaken she was at what he was doing—or, rather, not doing. She didn’t want him to see her shock and distress, or realise how horrified she was.
But when Santos moved at last, the faint rustle of material telling her that he had snatched up some clothing, she couldn’t hold back any longer.
‘What is it?’
Her eyes flew open, staring straight into Santos’s cold, gleaming stare, and what she saw there chilled her right through to the bone. He had not only picked up his clothes, but had also shrugged on his shirt, pulling it closed at the front and buttoning it up with fingers that were shockingly steady and disturbingly fast. It was as if he couldn’t wait to cover up, to be away from her.
‘Santos—what …?’
For the space of a couple of shocked, unsteady heartbeats, he held her stunned gaze without moving, without any hint of emotion. And then his eyes dropped, surveying her exposed, half-naked body with such total disdain that she could almost feel the burn of his gaze searing off a much needed protective layer, leaving her raw and vulnerable.
‘I think that will do,’ he said at last, his tone as icy as his eyes.
‘Do?’
Alexa couldn’t believe what she was hearing, what was happening. How had the ardent, urgent lover of just moments before been suddenly transformed into this cold-eyed, hard-faced, hard-voiced stranger?
‘Do in what way?’
‘In every way.’
To her horror he flashed an on-off smile, barely there then gone again, into her appalled face, no trace of light reaching his eyes so that it was only a movement of his mouth with no effect anywhere else. He finished fastening his shirt, reached for his trousers and pulled them on before smoothing his palms over the shining black hair that her clutching fingers had disordered, restoring it to order. He might as well have put on a suit of armour, closing it up around his chest and throat, carefully keeping her at bay, so deliberate were his actions, distancing himself from her and practically putting up a warning sign that declared loudly, ‘Go away, keep out! Trespassers will be prosecuted.’ Even his stunning eyes were hidden under heavy, hooded lids, so that she could barely see them.
‘I think I’ve made my point. In one way at least, there is someone out there for each of us. I’ve never known anything like that. Never.’
‘And is that meant to be a compliment?’
The terrible, tearing agony of realising that it had all been just some perverted sort of test, a way of proving that she couldn’t resist him—and, damn it, she hadn’t been able to, had she?—made her voice shrill with self-disgust.
‘Am I supposed to be grateful?’
‘Not grateful, no. But you might consider it a relief because it shows that in this way at least, our marriage is not going to be the ordeal you seemed to think. In fact, you might actually enjoy it.’
‘Why, you—’
She would have lost her grip on her control, would have launched herself at him in a fury, but at that moment a loud buzzing sound had Santos pulling his mobile phone from the pocket of his trousers.
‘Si … Momento …’
Shockingly matter-of-fact, he turned back to Alexa.
‘Perdone … I have to take this call. Wait here—I will be back in a moment and we will talk about this further.’
They wouldn’t talk about it at all, Alexa told herself. And if he thought that she was going to stay here quietly and wait for him after that horrific humiliation, then hell would freeze over before she would do any such thing. But, deciding that discretion was very definitely the better part of valour and she would do best not to arouse his suspicions, she forced herself to nod briefly, avoiding the searching gaze of his eyes as she did so.
She even managed to lie still, exactly where she was, as he walked away, her heart thudding, breath catching as she prayed that he would just keep moving and that he wouldn’t look around, that nothing in her edgy position, the way she was poised in readiness for flight, would communicate itself to him.
As soon as Santos disappeared through a door at the far end of the room she jumped off the bed, pulling down her dress and adjusting it, tugging her clothing back into place as she went. Looking in the mirror was the last thing that she wanted to do but practicality forced her to do just that. She could hardly walk out of here looking as if …
Oh, hell—looking as if she had just been indulging in the most wanton, erotic sex of her life.
She might have been doing just that, but her tangled hair, swollen lips and panda eyes were too much of a giveaway for appearing in public. She was forced to waste a few precious moments on essential repairs, all the time scarcely daring to breathe for fear that the door would reopen and Santos would come back into the room.
But at last she was on her way, running silently down the stairs, trying to work out just how she was going to get a car to take her back to her hotel.
In the end it was stunningly easy. She braved it out, speaking to the first member of staff she saw.
‘Señor Cordero wants the car brought round to the front door.’
Obviously the power of Santos’s name was absolute because the woman simply nodded and disappeared in a rush. There was a brief, anxious wait, a panic that perhaps he might finish that phone call and catch her. But then suddenly the sleek black limousine was there by the steps, the uniformed chauffeur getting out to open the passenger door for her, and she scrambled hastily and rather inelegantly inside, huddling down on the seat in case Santos should reappear and look around for her.
It was only as the car pulled
away and headed down the drive that she allowed herself to draw in a long, shaken breath in the hope of slowing the whirling spin of her mind and look around. She couldn’t quite relax until they had reached the main road and turned in the direction of Seville, and that was when she realised that she still had nothing on her feet.
The elegant and ruinously expensive shoes that had crippled her feet so painfully were still lying under the wooden bench near to the swimming pool where she had kicked them off when she had first gone outside. She had left them there when Santos had carried her inside and she had no intention at all of going back for them, no matter how much they had cost. Apart from the fact that they would tear her feet to ribbons, they now had memories attached to them that she didn’t want to have to recall.
So she was sitting in the car like some sort of Cinderella on her way home from the ball, having left her shoes back there. But they weren’t glass slippers, and it wasn’t Prince Charming she had left behind. Instead of her coach turning back into a pumpkin it was Santos himself who had changed from seeming to be something close to the prince into the Big Bad Wolf.
All the magic she had felt earlier in the evening had evaporated, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth as the tiny dreams she had allowed herself to feel just for a moment shrivelled into ashes. And she could only pray that the wolf prince wouldn’t come after her as he had hunted down Cinderella in the original fairy tale.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CINDERELLA WAS WELL and truly back from the ball.
Alexa’s smile was wry as she unlocked her front door and let herself back into her cottage after a long day at work. The contrast between the luxury and style of Santos’s beautiful house outside Seville and this tiny home, with its slightly shabby décor and worn appearance, couldn’t have been much greater. But at least this was a home and not a showplace as the Seville house had been. A showplace with no heart, and no real warmth of any sort.
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